Lydia wrote instead:I’m being held captive on one of the abandoned ships near the broken pier. Farley and his men will be waiting for you at the warehouse at sunset but that’s a trap. He wants to kill you. Please be careful and if anything happens to me, know that I’ve always loved you. Yours forever, Lydia.
Feeling hesitant, and a little concerned that Farley could read it after all, she glanced up. “Anything else?”
“Na, just fold it up and seal it with a kiss.” He waved his gun in the air, laughing.
Lydia did precisely that and handed it over.
“Noah!” he shouted out the door and someone who looked like an older version of Buck appeared in the opening. “Make sure this gets to Tempest. An’ don’t ya let no one follow you.”
She breathed a sigh of relief when Noah tucked the note into his shirt and disappeared. And another when Farley handed the gun to Buck.
“Take this.” With his hands free, Farley then grasped her wrists and tied her hands in front of her again. “If she does anything stupid, shoot her. But not in the head or the body. She’s more use to us if she’s alive for now. If anyone else comes, though, shoot them in the head.”
“Not the heart?” Buck asked.
“Wherever.” Farley sent Buck an annoyed look over his shoulder. “Just be sure they end up dead.”
“Understood, boss.”
Farley strode toward the door and then halted, jerking around to pin his gaze on her. “You nobs should have minded yer own business.”
She wanted nothing more than to scream back at him. Because when the thieves had begun stealing the soldiers’ supplies, they’d put the entire country in danger, making it everyone’s business.
“How did you get Arthur to do it?” she asked instead.
“Bought ‘his vowels, how else? Every man has his weakness. Funny thing is, Tempest’s little brother wasn’t loyal to no one. Fickle as ‘ell, he was.” And with that, Farley stepped outside and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with Buck again.
With Buck and the gun.
Lydia exhaled a slow breath. If Arthur hadn’t been loyal to Farley, it meant he’d regretted his actions at some point, right? That had to mean something.
She glanced over at Buck, who was staring down the barrel of the pistol as though he was trying to see how it worked.
Perhaps knowing Arthur had been coerced into his treachery would help Jeremy reconcile himself to it. She only hoped she’d stay alive long enough to tell him.
CLEANING HOUSE
“Ihate to interrupt, but I think we might have a problem.” Westerley’s tone was serious enough that it demanded Jeremy’s unfettered attention.
“On the docks?” Jeremy glanced up, feeling the walls of the basement suddenly closing in around him.
Westerly nodded. “Word’s out that you intend to clean house. We knew they’d fight back, but something’s brewing around the old ship we believe to be their headquarters.”
Baxter turned to Jeremy. “We can’t delay the raid, not unless we’re willing to risk the whole lot of them getting away.”
“Agreed. The gang bosses would only set up somewhere else.”
The club owner was already rising from the crate where he’d been seated. “I’ll send word to my men.”
Sounds of more descending footsteps echoed in the room and this time, it was one of Jeremy’s clerks, Smithy, who came into view. But he was not alone.
The very last person Jeremy wanted or expected to see in the dimly lit basement appeared behind him, a man he’d once considered practically a brother. Jeremy narrowed his eyes at Blackheart.
With hawkish features and hair so dark it was almost black, even in a dingy and foul-smelling cellar, the duke managed to exude the arrogance that had been bred into him.
“What the hell are you doing here, Blackheart?” Jeremy stretched to see around this unwanted visitor, but apparently, he’d come alone. “Lucas isn’t with you?”
Lydia’s brother held up both hands, chuckling softly. “I come in peace.” He glanced around with a sardonic lift of his brow. “And felicitations on a most interesting acquisition.”
